“I think what many Israelis don’t understand is that Obama, from one angle of approach, is probably the most Jewish president the United States has ever had. When he ran for Congress against an ex-Black Panther candidate, he was accused of being the candidate of the Jewish community. He has been influenced by Reform rabbis and liberal Jewish lawyers and his intellectual influences include many Jews, both people he met at Harvard and in Chicago and writers he admires. In a certain way, he could be placed in the spiritual and moral mainstream of American liberal Judaism.